Identifying peace-oriented media strategies for deadly conflicts in Pakistan

Abstract

This paper investigates the existing journalistic practices in three deadly conflicts in Pakistan and also proposes corrective peace-oriented media strategies. Based on semi-structured interviews with journalists, analysts and stakeholders involved in the religiously inspired Taliban conflict, separatist-led Balochistan conflict and the ethno-political conflict in Karachi, six strategies have been identified. These include highlighting the problems of sufferers and contextualization of the Taliban conflict; inclusion of multi-perspectives and highlighting the voices of peacemakers in the Balochistan conflict; humanization and solution-oriented coverage of the ethno-political conflict in Karachi. While the journalists agreed these strategies were very much in line with their professional duties, the analysts and stakeholders hoped the proposed journalistic practices would lead to better understanding and facilitate resolution of the three conflicts. Based on the findings of this article, the researchers advocate a pragmatic form of peace journalism that reflects the ground realities as compared to the more critical form of peace journalism that becomes difficult to be practiced in conflict scenarios.